If I were a memeber of the football team and had a family tragedy so drastic as this I would be besides myself. If I had no way of getting in contact with family, besides internet and e-mail, to see how everyone was doing and if anyone was injured or killed I would make it a point to put family first over football and ask the coach to be dismissed to head home because of it. A natural disaster such as this cannot be stopped and has very little precaution or warning. I do not think the coach would have any issue with the two student-athletes going on family leave for this tragedy because of the impact it has had on them and also their fellow teammates. Time of grieving is necessary and any good coach would understand.

When tragedy strikes like in this article, you have to wonder sometimes. Do the coaches care what goes on in the students personal lives outside of athletics. If i played for this team I would definitly approach the coach and tell him about the tragedy that just took place. You can plan for this type of thing so its a shock to the athlete and the best thing for him is to be with the family members that werent necessarily affected by this physically. This goes along the lines of what happned at UCONN, where one of the players was fatally stabbed. The Head coach of UCONN, Randy Edsall said that if any of the players could not bring themselves to play it would be alright. To me, thats a good coach, allowing the student athletes however long they need to recoup from such a horrific event.

This to me is a big tragedy. If something like this would happen to me I wouldn’t even know how to react. For example, the Junior offensive lineman Neli A'asa who was actually born in Pago Pago lost three members of his family. While Neli is trying to do get an education and play football, how would you feel if you could only get in contact with your family only through email and internet. If I was him or even Sealver Siliga I would ask for a leave of absence because I would want to go back home and really help my family in either rebuilding our home or actually searching for family members as well. I don’t think a coach should have a problem with this because this is a natural disaster and not something that just happens everyday. Also in an another eye of this would the coach actually be worried about the athletes? If the athlete felt they wanted to stay and not miss classes or games would you as a coach make the athlete take a leave of absence and go home and deal with the situation? Or even just take time of from playing to clear their mind? Or even would they try to comfort the athlete because of this? My thoughts and prayers go out to all the families that this affected by this tragedy!